Age of Giants: Bramante, Raphael and Michelangelo

Popes Martin V (1417-1431) Eugenius IV (1431-1447) Nicholas V (1447-1455) Callixtus III (1455-1458) Pius II (1458 - 1464) Paul II (1464-1471) Sixtus IV (1471-1484) Innocent VIII (1484-1492) Alexander VI (1492-1501) Pius III (1503) Julius II (1503-1513) Leo X (1513-1521) Adrian VI (1522-1523) Clement VII (1523-1534) Paul III (1534-1549)

Popes

- Shift in Renaissance art/ altar painting - Renaissance artists infused christ with life and death but also a Eucharistic meaning tied more to the spatial context of the painting - Turned Christ into an iconic altarpiece with a central prominence, and Raphael and Titian advanced this did and relocated the body of Christ forward so it looked like other figures were receding into the background (they broke the laterality and parallelism) - Titian's entombment is a work that controls the excess, resists the models, challenges commensurability and declares its ineffability. - Line of the heads of the bearers to the wound of Christ in the light, goes from the first blood shed by christ (his genitals at circumcision) to the last blood shed by Christ (crucifixion) - According to the gospels, during the Passion of Christ the world fell into darkness - The guiding principle behind the gospel narrative and the Titian painting is the tension between light and dark - Christ shown partially eclipsed, in between his life and death - Snails indicating the slow time from the original sin to the redemption of Christ

Alei Pt. 2

- Centripetal force of painting instead of horizontal with Joseph of Arimathea - Hiding of Christ's face in shadow-- forces the view to see with the eyes of the mind (spiritual contemplation rather than visual contemplation) - Titian portrayed himself as Nicodemus in dark green - (Michelangelo portrayed himself in his late Florentine Pieta.) - Influence by Alberti: Entombment exhibits rational Albertian composition in which perspective, ancient ideal and pathos combine to create a believable extension of the viewer's reality-- Meleager relief a prized example of Albertian ideals (completely lifeless body, arm dropping down) - Influenced by Paduan tradition, movement of Michelangelo and the heroic manner of Raphael - Virgin with clasped hands in Titian's entombment evokes John the evangelist on the right of Mantegna's engraving - Separates from Mantegna on the body of Christ-- Titian liked the hanging arm and dead body - Combination of sleeping bacchus with the dead Meleager-- epitome of representation of lifelessness and paradoxically of life in death

Alei, Titian Entombment

- Michelangelo resisting traditional altar forms with his man of sorrow/sacrament portrayals on the core group of an altar (not done as much at the time) - He believed the problem with Christian Art of his day was the focus on the literal details of Christ's life, and the losing of touch with the spiritual aspects of Christian stories - He wanted to combine the animations of antique sculpture and reinvest the narrative expressiveness of contemporary Christian Art with spiritual significance - Michelangelo avoided the dead Meleager model and portrayed Christ as a stumbling Bacchus (image of the drunk Bacchus a recurring image in the Medici household, influenced Michelangelo) - Carriers of Christ in his entombment not just holding up the body of Christ, but receiving his divine influence - Example of Michelangelo focusing on the spiritual aspect of Christ's Crucifixion, and the promise of the redemption to come, vs. the narrow historical scope of what happened - Both Christ and Bacchus powerful in their vulnerability - Christ not seen as dead, but as in transport until the time of the resurrection-- Christ is drunk in the passion, but he's not drunk in suffering, he's drunk in ecstasy, being transported through the stages - Ficino, the neoplatonist, invoked the idea of the divine kind of drunkness, and the ecstasy of disencumbered minds, when they transgress the natural limits of intelligence-- soul is temporarily released from the body and the mind become sharper-- humanist ideas circa 1500

Altar images/Michelangelo's Entombment, Nagel

- Alberti wanted to raise painting to a liberal art-- consistent set of procedures and principles, focusing on aesthetic aims - New altarpieces were focusing more on narratives - Grifonetto's forgiveness of his killers in the moment of death made his death a sacrifice of sorts, parallels to Christ and the Virgin Mary in the pieta - Atalanta was like the Virgin mary because she was a widow-- a mother without being a wife - Emphasized grifonetto's physical beauty in the altar piece, something commonly done with Christ during the passion

Nagel Chapter 2

- Apse of old St. Peter's - Shell-shaped structure - 1450s - Nicholas V

Old St. Peter's

- Pope Sixtus IV (1471-1484), patron of the Sistine Chapel and Santa Maria Del Popolo - Aka Francesco Della Rovere - Establishing Rome as the New Jerusalem - Sistine Chapel exterior-- boring building exterior, but was made to replicate the exact measurements as the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem - Was the place where the pope celebrated mass, and where a new pope was elected by the cardinals (needed a place away from the city of Rome to celebrate mass and then invoke the holy ghost, who was supposed to inspire them as to whom they should vote for). - Black smoke = no pope, white smoke = pope - "Urbis Et Orbis"-- Fusion of emperor, divine leader, and a new solomon

Pope Sixtus IV/ Sistine Chapel

- Perugino the supervisor of all the painters hired to paint the lateral walls - Painted with consultation of the theologians-- paintings meant to speak to the people who worked inside

Sistine Chapel (cont'd)

- Temple created on the spot of St. Peter's crucifixion. - Taking inspiration from ancient architecture - Pantheon-like in relation to the dome, circular body and pilasters. - Also references Greek architecture. - Center of the building = the place where the cross of St. Peter placed. - No. of columns = 16 A justification that bring the world of Peter to the rest of the world Experimenting the theory he learnt at Florence vs Antiquity in Rome While Hercules became immortal for his effort (?), St. Peter was similar to him => Took the lement from the temple of Hercules Floor = ancient Roman marble medieval design = same type of the design as the medieval church The shell echoes the St. Peter's The proportion of the building is based on the ancient Roman monuments The plan: radiate from circle to columns It was considered as an antique roman building for its wide adoption of ancient elements By 1500 Antiquity bloomed in Room "As like revive the old technology"

Tempietto

- 1450s - Nicholas V - Symmetry and mathematics

The Vatican Palace

Name: St. Peter's Square Artist: Alberti Date: 1450s Patron: Nicholas V Original Location: St. Peter's Square - First area to achieve Alberti's SYMMETRY - Revived the ideas by Vitruvius. - Emphasis on geometry. Reason why ancient antiquity architecture became very important. - Concept of the ideal city = symmetry and mathematics. - Bold, measure, based on shapes.

Urbanism